Nokia makes a skirt from 80 Lumia smartphones

The company has developed a skirt made from 80 of its Lumia 1520 and 1020 smartphones. It's a fashion thing, apparently.

(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET)

If wearing Google Glass on your face isn't a big enough salute to technology, you might want to take a look at Nokia's bizarre, new skirt. It's made from 80 of its Lumia 1520 and 1020 smartphones. I popped along to London Fashion Week, where the skirt was given its catwalk debut.

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• roughly the size and shape of a tutu that you would normally find on a ballet dancer. It's best to check out the photo gallery above to see exactly what it looks like. The phones are all turned on of course, and show a pattern that swirls in time with the motion of the wearer. At least, that's what Nokia said is happening -- with only a small walk up and down a catwalk, it was difficult to get a real impression of what the screens were doing.

Unsurprisingly, the skirt won't be making its way to shops. Instead, it's more of an art piece, designed to "explore the possibilities of smart technology and fashion coming together," explained Nokia.

The skirt was displayed during Fyodor Golan's show as part of London Fashion Week. I asked the fashion duo if they see smartphones and technology becoming more important in the fashion industry. Technology is "only now starting to talk to fashion. It has nothing to do with fashion at the moment. That's why we are trying to start doing it. There needs to be this dialogue -- it's just product design at the moment," they explained.The skirt was made in collaboration with Nokia, fashion designers Fyodor Golan, and interactive design agency Kin. I caught up with Matt Wade from Kin who explained that the biggest challenge in making the dress was getting all of the phones on the skirt -- custom 3D-printed clips were created -- and developing the software that would allow all the phones to work together.

"There is this hurdle at the moment that the fashion industry and the technology industry need to get over -- they need to start working together